Killer chooses death by firing squad rather than electric chair

A South Carolina murderer has chosen to die by firing squad rather than in the electric chair.

If the execution is carried out as planned on April 29, Richard Bernard Moore, 57, will be the first person executed in the state since 2011 — and the first in the U.S. executed by firing squad since 2010.

A law that went into effect last year made electrocution the state’s default method of capital punishment, but allowed a condemned inmate to opt instead to go before a firing squad of three prison workers with rifles.

Moore has spent more than two decades on death row for the 1999 killing of James Mahoney, a Spartanburg convenience store clerk.

Moore’s attorneys have asked the state Supreme Court to delay his death while another court determines if either available method is cruel and unusual punishment.

South Carolina correction officials say they have been unable to precure the drugs needed to carry out lethal injections, which is the default method in most states that carry out executions.

The state corrections agency said last month that it had completed $53,600 in renovations to allow a firing squad in the death chamber in Columbia. The condemned inmate will be strapped into a metal chair; three volunteer prison workers will fire through an opening in a wall 15 feet away.

In addition to South Carolina, three states — Utah, Oklahoma and Mississippi — allow a firing squad, according to the Washington-based nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center.

The last execution by firing squad, in 2010, was that of Ronnie Lee Gardner, who was sentenced to death for killing a man while attempting to escape from a Utah courthouse.

In addition to arguing against the available methods of execution, Moore’s lawyers have asked for a delay so the U.S. Supreme Court can review whether their client’s crime qualifies as a death penalty offense.

Moore wasn’t armed when he entered the convenience store. When the clerk, Mahoney, drew a gun during their verbal dispute, Moore took it away from him. Mahoney then pulled a second gun, and the two men fired at each other. Moore was shot in the arm, and the clerk received a fatal wound to the chest.

His appeals lawyers have said that, because Moore wasn’t armed, he couldn’t have intended to kill someone when he walked in.